Location type

Station

Name and dates

Commondyke (1897-1950)

Opened on the Muirkirk Branch (Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway).

Description

This was a two platform station in a shallow cutting which did not open with the line. The timber ticket was elevated at street level, on the north side above the eastbound platform and there were waiting rooms on each platform. There was no goods yard.

The site was south of Commondyke Farm in an area mined from before the railway opened. Nearby were miners' rows such as Long Row, Commondyke Row and Dyke Row (to the north) and High Row (to the south east).

A private mineral line to Barglachan Pit (coal) from the Lugar Iron Works crossed over the railway just east of Commondyke station. The line was initially single track, doubled probably around 1883.

To the north west was a freestone quarry. This was later the site of the St Patrick's RC Chapel, Convent, Presbytery and School. The settlement was known as Birnieknowe. (Birnieknowe Farm was to the west and Birnieknowe Glen bordered the settlement to the north west.)

A tightly curved siding left the west side of what was later the station and turned north through Birnieknowe. A large tip was north of (behind) the Long Row. By this is a red sandstone cross with an inscription reading

At a distance of eight feet in front of this spot, the Rev. Sister Laurienne was accidentally killed on the 8th day of August, 1888.

Nine years before the station opened she was crossing from the school (to the west) to check on a pupil at home (to the east) when she was struck by a mineral train driven by Johnnie Goodfellow. DL Smith recounts the story in his Tales of the Glasgow and South Western Railway.

Dykes Pit No 2 was to the south, served from west. This closed just before the station opened.

The station had a short lived signal box, opening with it in 1897 and closing in 1907.

The station closed in 1950. The line was singled in 1957, the eastbound line being lifted. the line closed temporarily in 1976 and completely in 1978.

Today a long portion of the brick built eastbound platform remains and the low mound of the westbound. A road bridge crosses to the east of the site. Of Birnieknowe little remains. The rows, chapel, school and convent are gone. The cross remains and, nearby, the appropriately named Laurienne House.

To the west was Blackstone Branch Junction and to the east Common Junction.

Tags

Station

External links

Canmore site record
NLS Collection OS map of 1892-1914
NLS Collection OS map of 1944-67
NLS Map
NLS Map
NLS Map

Nearby stations Lugar Cumnock [2nd] Auchinleck Cumnock [1st] Cronberry Cairntable Halt Dumfries House Skares Catrine Ochiltree New Cumnock Mauchline Mossgiel Tunnel Platform Sinclairston (Private) Muirkirk [1st]	Dykes Pit No 2 Birnieknowe Pit Blackstone Branch Junction Common Junction Dickston Pit Barglachan Pit Blackston Colliery Craigston Pit Coal Pit Common Pit No 6 Dickston Pit Maid Pits Coal Pit Barglachan Colliery Tourist/other Laurienne Memorial
Location names in dark blue are on the same original line.